December "Party"

It wasn't really a party, but there were snacks and cookies at the December meeting!!! (yum, yum!)

We got bumped from our usual meeting room, so we just took over a corner of the cafeteria.

(We all look excited to be there, don't we?)

This was during a conversation about the Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit and perusal of books being passed around.





Susan is trying to get this "bright" tree skirt finished to go under her tree.    

Mary Lee has once again gotten out her oldest UFO- a needlepoint stocking for her husband, who has seen her working on it, but has no idea what it is.









 Chris is making this gorgeous quilt as a gift for a friend, using a Rob Appell design.

 Chris was asked to make memory quilts for the family of a man with a lot of ties, so she has been practicing her dresden plates.  (sorry it's blurry)

This flannel quilt will be a gift for Chris' husband, I think.
(Gosh, I hope he doesn't read the blog!)














Connie has been making very cute ornaments with her tiny hexies.  The papers make them stiff and a little puffy!

Martha had her fish to show.

And a stocking for her grandson, whose mommy calls him Froggy

 

For the January meeting, we'll be at the Richmond Library, working on our challenge quilts.  (We hope to be at binding, but...)

November sharing

We had an informal show and share session for our November meeting, which all enjoyed!
The show and tell was inspiring to those of us who haven't been doing much sewing, and we now hope to have something we can show next time!

 Mary Ellen was trying to decide how to quilt her "Simple Symmetry" project, from last month's class with Paula Nadelstern.

Kathi brought several of her ongoing projects.



We all love how she enhances her work with stitching!

This piece is a couple of pieces of vintage fabric.  Kathi altered the front with a resist and some paint to make the design.  The stitching has made it rounded and Kathi isn't sure what- if anything- to do about that. 

Many teabags have become hexies, which will become.....

 These two pieces are part of a sort of round robin in another group.





















Mary Lee decided to use the skills she learned for Paula Nadelstern to make a ball.  The pattern can be found here, and there is a sewing tutorial with a pattern here.

 

Mary bought this kit at the Genesee Valley show last June.  She said she thinks her quilting is getting better.  

 Chris has been participating in Joan Ford's "ribbon star" block swap

Susan said she tried some new techniques on her fish, and that it's "Not great, but she had some fun".  We all disagreed about the not great part!!!

See- Inspiring!!!

Painting faces

At the October meeting, we met a new face- a funny felted pumpkin made by Mary Kozub.















The first projects in the fish challenge were revealed.


Mary Ellen calls hers "Goldie".  Her granddaughter just loves it.

Cynda's title is "What the Fish?











Our project for the evening was learning to paint faces using a technique Mary Ellen tried a while back, which comes from Bonnie McCaffrey, on painting faces to add to our quilts.

Most of us were less than confident that we could do this, but the results proved us wrong.


Mary did her daughter-in-law's face.

Elaine did her granddaughter.














Cynda and Martha used their own faces.

It will be interesting to see where these faces show up in the future!

Painting a picture, part 2

Lori was our host for the July meeting, where Chris led part two of this activity.

 

Special "guest" Susan Brubaker Knapp, showed her techniques to start things off.

Then everyone got to work on their own project. 

Connie brought handwork instead of the painting project, as she hadn't had time to prepare.  (poor Connie was stuck on a wonderful vacation to Alaska!)

Some of the work.....

Chris' parrot

Kathi working hard on the wedding portrait

Lori's butterfly

Cynda's flower

Beth's hamster

Thanks, Chris!  Looks like there will be some spectacular pieces for an upcoming show and tell!

"Reflections" exhibit at GoArt!

 It has been a while since we have done a gallery show, but we are happy to announce that our "Reflections" exhibit is now open at the GO Art! Senior Center Gallery

We used our "creative girls" as a sort of theme for the exhibit, several of which are pictured on the show booklet.















The entire exhibit is shown here, even though it had to be broken up to fit on the screen!

We hope you will come and enjoy the exhibit.  Some works are available for purchase!
 

These two pictures (above and below) are the long center wall of the gallery

The creative girls

Mandalas

Painting a picture, part I

   There wasn't much show and tell this month. 





Emmy brought a couple of her most recent cards.  She apologizes for them not being fiber or quilts, but we all admire her talent in creating these small works of art!!!

 Martha brought pictures of her brand new grandson for show and tell. 














 Chris used the techniques she learned from watching this dvd by Susan Brubaker Knapp for her Oriole quilt.  Tonight we learned the first part of the process.









Chose an image with a strong focal point and contrast, and print it full page. Trace onto tracing paper.

Make a copy of your tracing on plain white paper, the size you want it to be for your quilted project, and trace it onto pfd fabric.  

For some of us, choosing the image was the hardest part!

Others knew exactly what they want to interpret on fabric and got right to work.

These are the images we will be painting on fabric next month.

Martha's Pokeweed blossoms

Kathi's mother's wedding photo

Mary Ellen's Magnolia blosson

Chris wants to try doing this zinnia blossom in another medium.

 (She used it for her Museum Quilt Guild Blooms January 2015challenge entry )

Elaine's inspiration is her Clematis in bloom

Cynda decided on bittersweet berries

We can't wait to see how Emmy does the water droplets!

Beth is doing a hamster!

Lori got a great shot of a butterfly

Mary Lee is continuing her door series

Most important is that we are having fun doing this!!!


Beginning June 22, the ArtCGirlz will have an exhibit of our work, titled "Reflections", at the GoArt gallery at the Senior Center on Bank Street in Batavia.  Information should be available here soon!